ananyo writes: Japanese scientists have coaxed stem cells into forming a 5-millimetre-long, three-dimensional tissue that the researchers labelled a liver bud — an early stage of liver development. The bud lacks bile ducts but has blood vessels and when transplanted into a mouse, was able to metabolize some drugs that human livers metabolize but mouse livers normally cannot. The work is “the first report demonstrating the creation of a human functional organ with vascular networks from pluripotent stem cells”, the team claims.